Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.90

Garmin Ltd. (NYSE:GRMN) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, February 20th, Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be given a dividend of 0.90 per share by the scientific and technical instruments company on Friday, March 27th. This represents a $3.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 13th. This is a positive change from Garmin’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.75.

Garmin has raised its dividend by an average of 4.4% per year over the last three years. Garmin has a payout ratio of 37.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Garmin to earn $7.98 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $3.00 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 37.6%.

Garmin Stock Performance

Shares of GRMN opened at $228.61 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $212.99 and a 200-day moving average price of $194.84. Garmin has a fifty-two week low of $128.89 and a fifty-two week high of $246.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $43.90 billion, a PE ratio of 31.27, a PEG ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.98.

Garmin (NYSE:GRMN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 19th. The scientific and technical instruments company reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.90 by $0.51. Garmin had a return on equity of 19.31% and a net margin of 22.42%. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.70 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.72 earnings per share. Garmin’s revenue was up 22.9% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Garmin will post 7.8 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have issued reports on GRMN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Garmin from $219.00 to $260.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Garmin from $158.00 to $188.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Garmin from $215.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Garmin to a “sell” rating and raised their target price for the company from $164.00 to $171.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 11th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $195.67.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Douglas G. Boessen sold 1,761 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $207.99, for a total transaction of $366,270.39. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 27,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,743,019.88. The trade was a 6.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 19.54% of the company’s stock.

About Garmin

Garmin Ltd. designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes a range of wireless devices worldwide. Its Fitness segment offers running and multi-sport watches; cycling products; smartwatch devices; scales and monitors; and fitness accessories. This segment also provides Garmin Connect and Garmin Connect Mobile, which are web and mobile platforms where users can track and analyze their fitness, activities and workouts, and wellness data; and Connect IQ, an application development platform.